


Kept Man

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2019 [26]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Illegitimacy, M/M, Political Tom Riddle, Possessive Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:01:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21849340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry Evans is a lowly Dark Patrol wizard who’s working hard to advance. He doesn’t think much of Senior Undersecretary to the Minister Tom Riddle, but on the other hand, a one-night stand that lets them both get rid of tension seems like a good idea. Except that the one night-stand never seems to end.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: From Samhain to the Solstice 2019 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1532687
Comments: 172
Kudos: 3756





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year. It will have three parts.

Harry sighed and leaned his back against the black marble wall behind him, ignoring the sharp glances that came in his direction. Yes, to some extent the Minister cared about her Dark Patrol looking neat and holding up standards, but she couldn’t care _too_ much about them, or Harry never would have been hired in the first place.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could still taste the blood of the ritual circle in his mouth.

To distract himself from thoughts that weren’t going to do any good anyway, Harry glanced towards the Minister. She was wearing an impatient smile and nodding at the crowd of well-wishers around her. Harry wondered idly if it had really been her idea to throw a huge gala for her birthday. Other than the fact that all the money raised at it went to charity, it seemed an odd move for Minister Granger.

“Evans! The wall can hold itself up! Get out there and make sure no one’s arranging to poison the Minister!”

Harry didn’t bother retorting. It only meant he had to listen to lectures and nothing changed. “Yes, sir,” he said, and pushed away from the wall to pass Auror Halloway. The man’s crooked nose seemed to point directly at his back as Harry took up another desultory patrol around the room.

 _Poison Minister Granger? Honestly?_ Most of the wizarding world was the most content it had been at least since Harry’s birth, with a reform-minded Muggleborn Minister. That she was Muggleborn contented the factions who wanted to see real change, and that she worked slowly, from the inside, contented the old guard of pure-bloods.

Still, Harry supposed there was always the possibility. So he walked slowly around the room, his wand in his sleeve, nonverbally casting the spell that checked for poisons on glasses that people held and the carafes of drinks that were being carried around the gala by the ostentatiously human servants. Nothing would happen to the drinks unless they were poisoned, when they would glow with a soft blue light, and if that happened, Harry would have to worry about other things than offending people.

As he’d expected, all the drinks in the room seemed to be fine. Harry returned to the corner where he’d been standing before and stared straight ahead without seeing anything.

He knew that eventually, as he climbed the ranks of the Dark Patrol, he would have more interesting duties. But he’d been in this position for eighteen months already, and nothing had really changed.

His last name, and his lack of legitimacy, had a lot to do with it.

Harry shook his head and snapped to attention as a Ministry flunky drifted towards him. He didn’t recognize this one by sight, but that just meant the bloke didn’t work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. His silver-edged purple robes said that he was someone important fairly high up.

Now the bloke pressed some kind of folded note into Harry’s hand, sniffed, and said, “Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” before he turned away. Baffled, Harry opened the note while holding his hand up in front of his mouth to make it look as if he was just shielding a yawn.

_Step outside the ballroom through the door on your right and enter the meeting room three steps down the corridor on your left. Undersecretary Riddle requests your presence._

Harry swore silently and moved smartly. Undersecretary Riddle was the Senior Undersecretary in the whole damn Ministry, serving under Minister Granger the way he’d served the three Ministers before her. No one kept him waiting and bragged about it.

Harry’s life was miserable enough without incurring Riddle’s displeasure.

The meeting room with Riddle in it turned out to hold a chair and an odd thing on the floor that looked like a Transfigured pallet. Harry blinked at it, but the majority of his attention was going to Undersecretary Riddle himself.

He was wearing plain black robes, not the silver-edged ones that his flunky had, but then, Riddle had never needed that sort of precious metal edging to make a statement. He stared at Harry now with intense, narrowed eyes, and Harry fought not to shift under his gaze.

“You wanted to see me, Undersecretary Riddle?” Harry finally asked. It had probably been a game to get him to break the silence first, but honestly, someone had to do it or they’d be standing here all night.

Riddle nodded. He had to be in his seventies at least, but no sign of that showed on his smooth face. He had no beard, which was out of fashion nowadays, but his burning dark eyes would have dared anyone to comment. Harry vaguely approved, since he didn’t grow much more than a scraggle of hair on his chin himself.

“You’ll do,” Riddle said. “Since my choice isn’t broad.”

Harry stiffened his shoulders to keep from snapping something unfortunate. “Do for what, sir?”

Riddle stood up and strode over to him instead of answering. Harry stiffened his shoulders again. He wanted to punch Riddle in the face or curse him, but that would make him a pariah in the Ministry far faster than having the last name Evans would.

Riddle leaned down and kissed him.

Harry made an undignified blurting noise against his mouth, and tried to draw away. Riddle reached up and caught Harry’s wrist, holding him still. Flickers of red, raw pain filled the corners of Harry’s vision as he struggled against the grasp, which seemed much stronger than it should be.

Then Riddle’s tongue plunged into his mouth, and Harry felt as if he was drowning.

He’d had sex, of course. Plenty of times, and even with a few blokes in Gryffindor and one in Slytherin who’d offered. But it had felt nothing like this, thick and overwhelming and making him lose all sight of everything, all feeling but the warmth in his mouth and the sensations that flooded down his face and into the rest of his body.

Riddle pulled back at last, keeping his left hand on Harry’s wrist and his right on the side of his face. “I find myself in need of someone discreet, who will let me fuck him for one night,” Riddle murmured. “It can’t be someone outside the Ministry, who won’t have a plausible reason to meet with me on a regular basis. On the other hand, if it’s some too highly-ranked or too pure of blood, he’ll expect special favors. And among the lower-ranked wizards, you are the only tolerable-looking one.”

Harry let his tongue dart out to touch his lips while he thought. _Tolerable-looking. Lower-ranked._ Part of him wanted to tell Riddle to cram his offer up his arse.

On the other hand, a one-night stand wasn’t some kind of lifetime commitment. And Harry hadn’t had sex in eighteen months. He missed it.

He met Riddle’s eyes and studied his face critically. Handsome, of course. But the intensity was what Harry was really looking for, and one reason he hadn’t just gone out and pulled a Muggle. He wanted the magical connection he got with another wizard, and someone who _focused_ on him when they were together.

He’d get that with Riddle.

“All right,” he said, and glanced at the pallet. Now it was beyond obvious why some other piece of furniture had been Transfigured into it. “Here?”

“Of course, here,” Riddle said, his voice like a whip as he stepped back and began to undress. “It would hardly be discreet to have you leave again, would it?”

Harry nodded, shrugged, and began to pull his clothes off. His heart was pounding so furiously in his ears that it probably would have drowned out any thoughts that could get through, anyway.

He did think, _I’m sleeping with someone who could destroy my career if he wanted._

But as long as they gave each other what they wanted and _got_ what they wanted, he didn’t really think Riddle would have any reason to do that. Harry was so far beneath him on the Ministry ladder, after all.

He watched Riddle’s body appreciatively as he removed his own robes. He kept himself fit, that was clear, with more toned muscles than Harry had expected and skin that was relatively free of scars. And the way that he breathed, moved, and _focused_ made Harry stir and harden as he stepped out of his pants.

Riddle, meanwhile, was staring. Harry did his best to ignore that. Riddle would order him to put his clothes back on if he couldn’t stand how skinny Harry was.

“Come here,” Riddle said at last, his voice deep and husky.

Harry stepped up to him and kissed him first, something that startled Riddle if the half-flinch he made was anything to go by. But Harry kept his hands in place and kissed, something one of his lovers had taught him to do well, and Riddle first relaxed, then leaned into it, then nearly pushed him back into the wall with his ferocity.

Harry sighed in relief. Good, Riddle wasn’t going to be one of those people who thought that Harry’s inability to keep any sort of weight on meant he couldn’t take a good fucking.

“On your back,” Riddle whispered, and seemed startled again when Harry lay down and stretched his arms out. _Is he used to dealing with people who all want to top or something?_ Harry wondered, even as he smiled at Riddle.

“Going to get over here and show me the reality your reputation is based on?”

Riddle covered him completely when he lay down on top of him. Harry breathed out to feel the weight of a chest against his, and kissed Riddle again while wrapping his legs around Riddle’s waist and grinding against him. He sighed out when Riddle pulled back just long enough to reach thickly-lubed fingers down to Harry’s arse.

Riddle must have cast at least one spell Harry hadn’t heard—and probably wandless, too, but that wouldn’t surprise Harry given what he’d heard about Riddle. Harry grunted as Riddle explored inside him with those fingers. Riddle paused to eye him.

“Not good enough yet,” Harry told him. “Touch my bloody prostate already.”

“I certainly hope that it is not bloody when we finish.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Riddle thought he was interested in _puns_ when—

No, he was interested in _that._ Harry arched his back with a gasp, and caught a glimpse of Riddle’s smug face. Well, he could be all the smug he wanted, as long as he kept on touching Harry like _that._ Harry moaned his approval, and Riddle again drew back, this time in that way that meant he was probably lining up his cock.

Harry nodded, not that it looked as though Riddle would have waited for his permission, and Riddle surged into him.

It was rougher than Harry’s last lover had been, and more insistent; it seemed Riddle was determined to fuck all the sounds he could out of him. But Harry loved the burn, and the way that Riddle began to move as if nothing mattered but chasing his own pleasure.

It meant that Harry didn’t have to care about anything but his, either.

He did find out that Riddle was selfish in another way when Harry reached down to stroke himself and Riddle slapped his hand away. Harry rolled his eyes at the ceiling but had no trouble moaning as Riddle began to hit his prostate with every single thrust, which _had_ to be the result of a spell.

“Your eyes,” Riddle said in the middle of a gasp. Harry peered at him, and Riddle added, “They’re remarkable.”

Harry scowled. That was all anyone ever bloody complimented about him, his stupid eyes. What about his arse, or his magical strength, or his really great fucking skills?

To get back at Riddle, he squeezed down once, and had the satisfaction of seeing Riddle’s confident rhythm falter. Riddle swore at him. Harry ignored him and squeezed again, and Riddle jammed his hips forwards and grabbed Harry's cock in a painful squeeze of his own.

“You enjoy pain, do you?” Riddle hissed close to his ear. “Not what my re-reports said…”

At least he was stuttering because of the way Harry was clamping him, Harry thought, lost somewhere between pleasure and anger and bitterness. Riddle had been _investigating_ him? Why? Did he have to make sure that Harry’s blood was pure enough or something, despite his last name?

The grip they had on each other didn’t alter, and their eyes met and then their mouths, as Riddle furiously dipped his head and brought their lips together. Harry snarled into the kiss, but met it.

And then he came, and at least his vicious grip on Riddle dragged him over the edge, too. Harry gasped and shuddered through his climax, clinging to the greater pleasure that Riddle hadn’t jerked him off.

Well, thinking about it, the man’s cock _had_ made him come. But that wasn’t something he had to think about.

He fell back against the pillow afterwards, and Riddle leaned on top of him, glaring at him in a way that said Harry had better not even be thinking the word _slump._ Harry raised his eyebrows back, and waited until Riddle finally climbed off and slid out of him. Then he sat up and reached for his robes.

Riddle’s arm tightened punishingly around his middle, making Harry grunt for breath. “Where are you _going_?”

“Back to my post at the gala.” Harry kept his voice clipped. It was better than getting into some kind of odd argument with Riddle, which was what he seemed to be angling for.

“Hardly. I was promised a one- _night_ stand. I shall have that night.”

“The discretion you’re also so obsessed with is hardly going to go along with me staying here.”

“One of mine will tell your superiors that you had a bad reaction to some of the food and you’re recovering.”

Harry dropped back to the bed with a disgusted noise. Riddle leaned closer on his other side, but Harry refused to open his eyes and look at him. “And am I so terrible to spend a night in bed with?”

“They’re going to think I’m weak now. That’ll hold back my promotion opportunities.”

Riddle was silent, and Harry assumed he had gone to sleep. He was drifting in that direction himself, despite the clamp of Riddle’s arm around his waist, when he heard a surprisingly quiet, “And they hold you back?”

“I have a Muggleborn last name.”

“That was a stupid decision on your parents’ part, considering your father is a Potter.”

Harry closed his eyes and said nothing else. There _was_ nothing else to be said. Riddle had powerful friends and a respected bloodline, and would never understand himself.

*

“Careful, the smell might offend Evans’s weak stomach!”

Harry gritted his teeth and continued working on the report on the gala that Auror Halloway had assigned him, “covering the part you were there for, anyway.” He’d predicted exactly what would happen, and so it had. Even good rough sex wasn’t worth the price he was going to pay.

Near lunch, when the rest of the Patrol officers in his department had cleared out, Harry leaned back from his desk and sighed deeply. Honestly, why was he trying so hard with the Dark Patrol? Even if he’d had married parents or a good last name, very few people got promoted from the Dark Patrol to the Aurors. Maybe being a private dueling instructor, like Mum had suggested, would be better.

Of course, if he followed her suggestion now, Dad would probably get offended. Harry sighed again. Sometimes he wished his parents had just never fucked, instead of this weird relationship where they'd fucked a few times, had him, and then James Potter had married a Malfoy and promptly decided he was too good for his Muggleborn lover and her son, except when he _wanted_ to interfere.

“The weight of the world on your shoulders, Evans?”

Riddle had appeared in the doorway as though he’d Apparated there, but Harry didn’t give him the satisfaction of flinching. He only glanced at the man and shrugged a little. “You could say that.” He turned back to the report. No lunch for him today, given the jokes that would go along with it.

“You’re working instead of eating?”

“Yes, given the jokes about my weak stomach.”

Riddle chuckled. Harry choked on temper as hot as cinnamon. What had he seen in the man in the first place? Come to that, what did Ministers and the people who fawned on him see in him?

_Not that the question is going to come up for me. I’ll never be promoted to those heights._

Something hit the desk, and Harry whipped out his wand and stood with it pressed against Riddle’s throat in seconds. Riddle only stood motionless, elevating his eyebrows a little. “Nothing wrong with your reflexes.”

Harry glared at him and then at the bag he’d slapped on the desk, which honestly looked like nothing so much as a bag of money from Gringotts. He opened it slowly, keeping an eye on Riddle as he did. The smell of saffron rice and something else he couldn’t identify drifted out, making his stomach cramp painfully.

“I brought lunch to share.”

Harry waved his wand, and a spiral of rice and what turned out to be pork rose out of the bag. Riddle watched him with his face gone expressionless. Harry shrugged as he Transfigured one of the crumpled parchments that had been his first try as a report into a bowl. “Needed to make sure it didn’t have the kind of potion in it that would make him sick.”

“Why would I do something like that?”

“For the same reason you find jokes about my weak stomach to be funny.”

Riddle leaned in. “It was a decent cover story. And I find myself more interested in you than you might find comfortable, Patrolman Evans.”

Harry didn’t respond, locating a fork from the bottom of the desk and digging into the new mingling of rice and pork in front of him. He had to close his eyes, because he was damned if he would moan in front of Riddle. The surge of warmth in his stomach and bliss in his throat made him want to, though.

“It’s Spanish,” Riddle said, looking pleased when Harry glanced at him again. “And I find myself interested in your story, why your name is Evans instead of Potter.”

Harry shrugged. The truth itself made his stomach ache in a way that this meal would never be able to touch, no matter how good it was, but the story was well-known enough that Riddle could find someone other than Harry to tell him if Harry didn’t.

“I was born illegitimate. Mum really thought James Potter had changed from the prat he used to be, and he'd marry her. _Dad_ decided, after getting pressure from some other people he wanted to impress, that he was going to marry Livia Malfoy and play the perfect pure-blood. Lots of people knew he was my father, of course, but he never claimed me formally, and Mum just behaved the way everyone thought Muggleborns 'should' by sleeping with a pure-blood and not casting contraceptive charms. Now the only time I see my father is when he decides that I'm shaming him in this weird borderland where he won't claim me and he won't leave me alone.”

“Fascinating,” Riddle said softly. “From that perspective, it sounds almost as though you wish your father had never acknowledged you at all.”

Harry shrugged again. It was true enough. And Riddle didn’t need to know anything else.

“My half-sister Annabelle is the Potter child my father needs,” Harry said simply. “She has the looks and the magic and the blood and everything. She makes friends without trying and she's on the fast track to becoming a Wardmaster once she graduates from Hogwarts.”

“And you’re so certain that you are not destined for similar success?”

“Yeah, I am,” Harry said shortly. Riddle _also_ didn’t need to know about the lectures James Potter had given him, threatening what would happen if Harry climbed too high in the Ministry, but also if he pursued a "shameful" career outside it.

Riddle didn’t take offense at his tone, but only conjured his own bowl and poured some of the rice and pork dish into it, beginning to eat without looking away from Harry. Harry leaned back from his own meal a moment later. “This is hardly discreet. People are going to wonder why the Senior Undersecretary to the Minister is interested in a mere Patrolman.”

“They may think as they like.”

“No,” Harry said, and used his wand to raise a shimmering barrier across the door so no one walking by could see into the office. Or rather, they would see an empty desk and nothing else. It was an illusion spell that Mum had taught him, and Harry had perfected it a long time ago. “I want to know what changed between last night and now. One-night, discreet stand, that was one thing. I could understand that. But this?”

“Perhaps you don’t understand what I really want.”

“That’s a given. That would be why I’m doing this,” Harry gestured between them and slowed his voice down, “asking _questions_. Do you know that word, Senior Undersecretary? People ask each other _questions_ why they want to _know_ something.”

“No one else would dare defy me so to my face.”

Riddle sounded amused instead of infuriated. Harry leaned a little towards him. “And the person doing this is also the one you won’t be fucking, unless you start answering.”

“Bold of you to assume I would want a second night.”

Harry turned back to his report.

Riddle seized his wrist. Harry didn’t need his wand to cast deadly magic, though, and he settled for a sideways glare. Riddle laughed, long and low. “Very well, yes. I wouldn’t mind having you in my bed again. And in return, I will help you gain the promotion that you desire.”

Harry shook his head. “It would be too obvious. Someone like you taking an interest in someone like me? Someone would assume nepotism right away, and enough people know their genealogies that they would assume lover rather than relative.”

“Someone like me?”

“If you’re fishing for compliments, you won’t get them. But someone with a powerful bloodline all wizards know and fear.”

“I don’t think,” Riddle said softly, “that those wizards include you.”

Harry shrugged. “I was still raised by an independent mother even if people despise her. I don’t have any reverence for your bloodline.”

“Perhaps that is the source of the defiance that makes you so intriguing.” Riddle considered him for a long moment. "I find it all the more interesting that _you_ have not expressed any distaste for the idea of being a kept man."

"What, don't you think it's like mother, like son?"

The words fell into motionless silence, like the bottom of a deep pool. Riddle leaned forwards with his chin propped in his palm. "No," he said softly, when there was absolutely no chance that his words could have been mistaken for a mere response to Harry's. "One thing that separates you is that your mother, by all accounts, truly did believe that James Potter would marry her. You are actually arguing against the idea of a permanent relationship."

Harry said nothing. Most pure-bloods, or powerful half-bloods like Riddle, would have been discouraged by the reminder that Harry was illegitimate. He chewed and swallowed the last of his lunch and turned to his report again.

Riddle reached out to catch his wrist. Harry looked at him from the corner of his eye. "It doesn't matter how good-looking you are. If you keep touching me when I don't want it, then I'll shout, and your discretion will be ruined."

"This is the arrangement I propose," Riddle continued, his voice smooth and soft. "I give you all the traditional rewards of a kept man. I give you better food, better _clothes_ \--" His gaze swept Harry's robes and his nose wrinkled. "A better place to live, the promotion you want. In return, you be discreet, cooperate with me, and admit no one else to your bed."

"It sounds like this arrangement is unbalanced," Harry commented, while his heart hammered. Riddle hadn't even mentioned what would be the most attractive part of all this for Harry: that Harry would have someone protecting him powerful enough that James Potter couldn't control his life anymore. "Why would you settle for so much less?"

"You have no idea when was the last time I had the kind of release I enjoyed last night." Riddle leaned towards him. "Or how tiresome toadying becomes."

Harry leaned back in his chair, increasing the distance between them again. The air between them was too warm, too charged. He _had_ to have some distance. "You like that I'm defiant?"

"And intelligent, and capable of being a good conversationalist." Riddle's lips quirked. "Not that many people have given you a chance."

"You don't know that I'm capable of being a good Auror, though."

"I know that Minister Granger has noticed you," Riddle countered. "She's asked about you a few times. I think she would promote you, but the precarious nature of her position means that it would take at least another two years. And your qualities...yes, you would make a good Auror. Why should I not help that along?"

Harry swallowed. It felt as though one of the stars he had so often wished on as a child had suddenly glanced down and noticed him personally.

Perhaps in Hogwarts he would have refused this, still intent on being an idealistic Gryffindor, but then, back in Hogwarts he was somewhat shielded from the reality of being an illegitimate half-blood with a Muggleborn last name in the Ministry. Headmaster Dumbledore had created an atmosphere welcoming of all. Then Harry had graduated and found out that the ambitions and dreams he had been encouraged to nurture would wither on the vine in an instant.

And even if he had had the right last name, he would still have had a father intent on controlling everything he did. Riddle's arrangement represented one of the few genuine chances Harry had ever had to combat that.

Besides, the sex had been _really_ good.

He sighed. "Your word that you won't try to force me to reveal our relationship in public, that you won't stray, either, and that you will tell me when this needs to end."

"My word." Riddle's eyes were as bright as starlit darkness. He leaned forwards and lifted Harry's hand from the desk, kissing the back of it and making Harry's skin tingle so much that he caught his breath. Riddle smiled, lifting his gaze and his eyebrows at the same time.

"I think that you will make a good Auror," Riddle repeated, as if he still had that on his mind after what Harry had said before. "And a near-perfect lover."

Staring into Riddle's face, Harry wasn't sure if he could say the same thing, but he knew he wanted the chance to find out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story has lengthened so that it will have four parts instead of three.

“Harry, you're telling me that you’re going to be-- _kept_ by Senior Undersecretary Riddle.”

Harry sighed a little as he leaned on his knees in front of the fireplace in his flat. “I know, Mum. But he really has offered me a lot.”

Lily Evans drew her breath in sharply. “Oh, Harry. I’m afraid that this is going to spiral into some sort of political trap for you. Or an emotional one.”

“It’s hard to see how, though,” Harry pointed out as he stretched along the hearth. “I mean, sure, Riddle could use me in his schemes, but I’m not getting anywhere just by existing. I haven’t achieved anything in the last few years except to file endless reports and be a target of fun for people like Auror Halloway.”

“And that is my fault. I am sorry.”

“No, Mum. It’s mine.”

Lily’s head only bowed further, and Harry sighed soundlessly, to himself this time. In reality, it _had_ been his idea that he try for some kind of career in the Ministry. He had thought he could overcome the stigma against his mother, against his parents' lack of marriage, against his own weird status in limbo where everyone knew James Potter was his father but James refused him formal acknowledgment.

He had been a fool.

His father was the true villain of the story, but Harry knew that a part of Lily blamed herself and always would. He hoped she could get over her shame enough to accept that he'd made his own choices, though.

Lily seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she swallowed whatever else she would have said and looked up. “Riddle’s politics could put you in danger of your _life,_ though.”

“I don’t think so, not that much,” Harry said, shrugging. He kept his right wrist low at his side, so she couldn’t see the circle of fingerprints that surrounded it. Honestly, he still thought Riddle was violating his own demand for discretion by leaving marks like that on Harry. He could have kept Harry at his side with sweet promises and even had him as his lover without this constant physical touching.

Of course, part of Harry liked it. But that part was a fool, too.

“Why not? Everyone knows that Riddle’s enemies disappear, Harry.”

“The way that everyone knows people born outside marriage aren't worth anything?”

Not that he could tell through the green flames, but Harry knew his mother. He was sure that she had just flushed brilliantly. But her voice was calm. “Please don’t throw that back in my face, Harry.”

Harry sighed. “I know. But I’m just saying, public perceptions aren’t everything. They kept people at the Ministry from seeing my potential, and I think they’ve blinded people to what Riddle is. I know he’s dangerous, but I don’t think that he kills people. He wanted to make a bargain with me and be generous with it, not threaten me into his bed.”

“I knew you _were_ thinking of leaving the Ministry and establishing a business as a dueling instructor!”

“I was, before this. I’m really tired of being a Patrolman, Mother. But he promised me I could become an Auror.”

Lily was quiet and tired-looking for a long moment. Then she said, “I just hope that you know what you’re doing, Harry.”

“Lily? Who are you talking to?”

Harry pulled hastily back from the Floo. He wasn’t ready for a confrontation with his father. “I’ll talk to you as soon as I can, Mum,” he promised. “I really am sorry that this is happening the way it is. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Harry,” his mother murmured, and then the flames flickered and went out, so Harry didn’t know what she would say to James, or even why the bastard was visiting this morning.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the fireplace, then around his dusty little flat. He hated this place. He wouldn’t even have been able to afford a Floo connection if he hadn’t had a friend who had hooked up his connection in exchange for a favor.

But he couldn’t throw himself on the mercy of House Potter. Not yet. His father would have accepted his submission if Harry had admitted that he was wrong and he couldn't stand on his own without Potter protection. But Harry would rather eat dirt. James Potter had changed from a reckless young man into someone who would ruthlessly attack anyone who didn't do what he wanted. That, unfortunately, included his children themselves. Harry would have to lie for the rest of his life, or he would have to truthfully admit that he was nothing without a pure-blood name and parent.

_No. I refuse._

Harry grimaced and went to find a meal in his small kitchen. He should probably hope that his father didn’t find out about Riddle and Riddle’s "arrangement," either. That would be a disaster. Let him think that Harry was just tired of being a lowly Evans and had managed to impress the Senior Undersecretary.

*

“Your flat is utterly unacceptable.”

“So are your insults,” Harry said quietly, standing back from the door because Riddle looked ready to force his way in. Riddle only paused in his grimacing at the walls of the flat to shoot him a quick glance.

“My lover would never live in a place like this.” The wand in Riddle’s hand had already begun to flick, and colored streamers of light were surging away from it, heading for exactly those walls. Harry folded his arms and leaned back on the doorframe. This ought to be interesting.

The cleaning spells, or spells to hang expensive portraits, or whatever they were, touched the walls and recoiled. Riddle hissed sharply at the same time. Harry turned to him. He appeared to be clutching his wrist. Harry smiled innocently.

“What did you do?” Riddle demanded, turning to him.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You cast some kind of spell on _me_.”

Harry clucked his tongue. “You mean that you always cast without checking for defenses on the object you want to enchant? That’s curious and sad, and a deficiency I hope you can correct, since _I_ would never agree to stay with someone without a degree of basic caution. Watch.” He twisted his own wand through the small motion that would reveal the household defenses keyed to him.

The walls promptly lit with blue, green, red, and amber, crisscrossing each other in what Harry knew would look like wards to most people. From the narrowing of his eyes, Riddle wasn’t most people. He turned his head from side to side, tracking the loops of color, and then sighed and shook his head as they collided in front of him.

“I did not know you would suffer from paranoia.”

“Ready to give me up now?” Harry raised an eyebrow.

Riddle met his eyes, and Harry had to take a step back at what he saw in them. “Hardly,” Riddle whispered.

Harry recovered enough to say, “When I was in training to be a Patrolman, it was accepted that pranks on someone’s home and personal items kept us in ‘fighting trim’ or whatever nonsense they wanted to apply to it. Someone broke into my flat. That was the first time that happened, and the last.”

“So you had these defenses even before your training? Interesting.”

Harry rolled his eyes. That wasn’t what he had meant Riddle to take from his statement, even though it was a correct conclusion. “Believe whatever you want,” he murmured. “Now. If you _tell_ me why you think that my flat is ever going to matter while we play this out, maybe I can help you. I thought you would move me into some different place during the times you wanted to sleep with me. It's not very discreet to have you visiting my flat.”

“Because in two hours, the _Daily Prophet_ is coming over to see the place where the unfairly ignored Harry Evans lives.” Riddle made gentle brushing motions down his sleeves, as if to get rid of dust that wouldn’t have had the chance to settle there. “Their phrasing, not mine,” he added, as Harry felt his jaw tremble with the urge to fall open.

“You set this up.”

“I merely made my concerns known, and the _Prophet_ contacted me. Understandably, they were curious about the man who had achieved so much with a Muggleborn last name, and then had his accomplishments ignored just because of that name.”

Riddle’s eyes were cutting enough that Harry turned away from them. But he shrugged. “Then you can show them this, and they can believe that my taste is a little less—impeccable than a pure-blood's.”

Riddle narrowed his eyes and stepped forwards. “I’m your ladder out of a life of lowly paperwork. You should be a bit more pleasant to me, Harry.”

“You’re the one who wanted this arrangement just to fuck me.” Harry shook his head. “I can only go on and hope that things aren’t going to go too badly. If you leave me here, I’m no worse off than I was.”

“Except the attention you’d draw from people wondering why you were about to be promoted and then had the promotion yanked. Attention you can’t afford, with your last name.”

Harry drew in his breath sharply, and then nodded and turned away from Riddle. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

“Not when it’s been in mugs as dusty as I’m sure you keep yours.”

Harry turned around even though he hadn’t meant to. “I’ll have you know that I have a mastery of basic household charms. All of us _Giftless Muggleborns_ have to have that, you know, since we have no hope of house-elves.”

Riddle watched him as closely as though he thought Harry would try to attack him while he took off his cloak. Then he nodded as if Harry had said something other than what he really had. “Tea would be welcome.”

Harry resisted the temptation to add dust to the kettle as he boiled the water.

*

“Mr. Evans? I think I was at Hogwarts with you. In the same year. Ravenclaw, if you remember?”

Harry didn’t have to struggle that hard to remember Minister Granger. He shook her hand and nodded politely. She made firm eye contact, and her grip was firm, too, probably as a result of dealing with pure-bloods who liked to disparage her for her name. Harry had tried going the same route before he gave up. He had really wanted to be respected for just who he was.

And he had compromised even that by being with Riddle.

Harry took a deep breath and reminded himself that, whether he liked it or not, James Potter would have destroyed any hope of a promotion for Harry just based on his merits. Harry had seen his excellent NEWT marks vanish into obscurity. Certainly Auror Halloway, when Harry had interviewed to become a Dark Patrolman, had never heard of them. He sat down in the chair across from the Minister’s desk and nodded to her.

“Yes, we were in the same year, Madam. Of course, you've achieved much more than I have.”

Riddle leaned back in his chair and watched Harry with emotionless eyes, apparently letting him guide this interaction. Fine, then. Harry respected Minister Granger in several ways, but he had no fear of her. And she wasn’t a pure-blood who would need special persuasion just to accept that he might have some kind of valuable contribution to make.

“I'm not sure about that.” Granger looked sympathetic, in some vague way, before she pushed the glasses up her nose and opened the file in front of her. “I took the chance to look up your OWL and NEWT scores, Mr. Evans. May I say that I’m surprised that you haven’t been promoted to Auror already? Your Defense NEWT marks included all the enthusiastic comments from the WEA. They quite raved about you.”

Riddle’s stare sharpened. Apparently he hadn’t known that. Harry smiled a little and said, “They got rather carried away by my ability to produce a corporeal Patronus.”

Riddle blinked, but said nothing. Granger smiled at him. “That’s rather rare. And it makes me feel better about the promotion that Undersecretary Riddle has recommended.” She turned to Riddle and cast a kind of Privacy Charm Harry had never seen before, one that blurred the air between them and seemed to blur their voices, too. Harry could see nothing but a soft wavering haze like smoke when he glanced at the two of them, and their voices were like crickets chirping in the distance.

Harry took the chance to close his eyes and take a deep, irritated breath. Revealing all of this to Riddle was not something he wanted to do, lest it make him seem even more pathetic and like he had nothing to offer but his body. Then again, a few minutes ago he would have said that Riddle probably knew it all, anyway.

Granger spoke and made Harry open his eyes. “Then it’s settled. The paperwork will be completed by tomorrow, and you’ll begin classes next week.” She nodded, pleased. “I’m glad that Undersecretary Riddle’s recommendation wasn’t made for the obvious reason.”

“Obvious?” Harry parodied, only for Riddle to give him a searing look that urged him to pretend to knowledge. “Oh.”

“I am aware of such—arrangements,” Granger said, somehow managing to make it sound like something she was picking up with a pair of tongs. Then again, Harry would have talked about it like that if he was in private—assuming Granger was talking about the same thing at all. “But I am glad that something else is going on here. More merit than anything.” She smiled at Harry. “Your last name and blood status are not enough to prevent cream from rising to the top.”

Harry made some noncommittal mumble and escaped from her office as soon as he could. Riddle walked next to him. Harry glanced at him and arched his eyebrows. “Such arrangements?”

“The Minister believes I am taking you under my wing as my political protégé, and that that it is none of her business as long as we don’t succumb to corruption.” Riddle clasped his shoulder and winked at several people in the corridors, who stared at them, and then broke into a babble of loud whispers behind them. “That is all that matters.”

“No, it’s not. My _classmates_ are going to interrogate me.”

“And I’m sure that you’re strong enough to withstand it, Mr. Evans.” Riddle tilted his head as they rounded another corner and descended towards the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. “Would you prefer to win the name of Potter? Nothing is going to be beyond you once we do this.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “No.”

“Yet with the name of Evans—”

“You’re the one who’s stating that you can give me magnificence even with the name of Evans. Prove it.”

Riddle only gazed at him as they turned a few more corners, and Harry forced himself to ignore the prickling sensation down his back. Riddle didn’t have a knife in his hand ready to stab him, and even if he did, he would be sorry. Harry carried a spell with him that could kill someone who was in the midst of killing him.

He was sure it would work on someone as powerful as Riddle. Well, almost sure, anyway.

“Giving you magnificence,” Riddle murmured, his voice as low and intimate as Harry had only heard it the one night they shared a bed. Harry hated that certain parts of his body immediately stood to attention. “You do phrase things well.”

And Riddle kissed his hand, his eyes hot, right before two Auror trainees who came up to share their lift. Riddle promptly stepped back and pretended that there was nothing further from his mind than sex.

Harry sighed. It was going to be a very _long_ day of meeting his classmates.

*

“So what’s the real story between you and Minister Granger?"

“We’re fucking each other’s brains out every night,” Harry said, not looking up.

The woman who had asked him the question choked, and Harry leaned back and stared at her wearily. “You’re asking the same exact question that everyone else has asked since I started classes. Don’t you read the papers? About my NEWT scores?"

“As if you would tell the truth to them. Everyone knows that Muggleborns and half-bloods lie,” said a different woman, Artemis Black, who had sat down next to him. She wasn’t the one who had already asked the question, but she stared at him with enormous black eyes as if she had. Harry grimaced at her. She was the bastard daughter of Bellatrix Black, the cousin of his father's friend Sirius, and he had known her when they were both in Hogwarts and hated her then, too.

She was a bastard, but she had the Black name and was even bragged about, the magically powerful child of a pure-blood who had died young in a broom racing accident. She was worth more to society than he ever would be.

Harry turned back to lacing up the dragonhide boots that had shown up at his window with an owl this morning. Of course he knew it was Riddle, because he wasn’t stupid, but he had spent long minutes smoothing his hands down the leather anyway.

“So we want the truth,” Artemis said, almost randomly, after a moment.

“The Minister looked at my NEWT scores and realized where I belong.” Harry stood, stamping for a minute. Yes, the boots fit perfectly. He rolled his eyes and wondered if Riddle had measured his feet the one night they had slept beside each other. It sounded like something the prick would do.

“But why would she promote someone like _you_?”

Harry glanced up when he heard someone near the door, hoping it was one of the instructors and they would stop this pointless interrogation. Instead, it was Riddle, leaning there with a dark smile as he ran his eyes up and down Harry’s legs. “Why don’t you tell them, Mr. Evans? You know it’s going to come out when you cast your spells, anyway.”

It took Harry only a moment of confusion to realize what Riddle was referring to. He would have to show his power if he was going to cast spells that could compete with the pure-bloods’.

He shrugged and drew his wand. “Which one?”

Riddle didn’t answer, but drew a curved iron bar from his pocket, like the one used to test Auror trainees on the first day of class. Iron was much harder to affect with simple spells than any other material. Riddle tossed it at him, and Harry lashed out with _Incendio,_ casting it nonverbally.

Artemis wasn’t the only one to gasp and take a step back as the bar flashed into a burst of white steam, vaporized before it reached the top of his arc. That still wasn’t as hot as Riddle’s eyes, or the stupidly pleasant flush that crept over Harry’s skin when he met that gaze. Uncomfortable, he turned away and bent down to give his bootlaces one more unnecessary tug.

“You—how could no one ever have noticed before?” Artemis finally whispered.

“No one bothered to test,” Harry said. There were tests that were supposed to find “lost” heirs of families like the ones who might be born of Squibs in the Muggle world, but as far as Harry knew, they were given rarely and only to people who were virtually certain to pass. No one was going to test someone with the last name Evans.

“But you should have been. You can’t be an Evans. What families have gifts that result in fire?” Artemis asked, glancing around as if she expected someone to unroll a family tapestry from over their arms.

“You are making the mistake, Miss Black, of assuming that Mr. Evans’s magic only extends to fire.” Riddle leaned back on the doorway, his arms folded and his gaze possessive and admiring. Harry shuddered a little to see if that would make Riddle’s eyes slide like oil off his skin, but it didn’t help. “It is sheer, raw power.”

“Well, of course, that’s only a requirement for an Auror.” Artemis folded her own arms. “But there has to be something more to it than that. Every Auror has _that_.”

“I think you will find that Mr. Evans has more strength than any three of you.”

And then, of course, Riddle swanned out, and left Harry to the mercy of Auror trainees who had nothing like it. He scowled. He would have to beat them in mock duels, he was sure, as well as formal training.

But he tightened his shoulders. He would do it. He would prove to Riddle that he was worthy of the man’s favor.

… _Somehow that thought didn’t come out the way I meant it to._

*

“Harry, darling. It’s me.”

Harry grimaced as he stretched his arms and leaned back in the hot bath. He had no intention of answering the door of his flat, and not just because it was Riddle’s voice. If nothing else, trying to stand right now would probably send him plummeting right back into the bath.

He’d proven himself. He’d handled the duels. But it had left him with a worse case of strained muscles than the time he’d fallen off his broom while being chased by Slytherins who hated Muggleborns.

Then he heard the sound of a key in the lock, and watched in disbelief as Riddle stepped in. He stretched and draped his own cloak over the hook on the back of the bathroom door that usually held towels. Then he began to remove his shirt in a leisurely fashion.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Riddle looked up, his eyes full of pleasure. Harry doubted it was caused by the sight of him, since Harry’s nakedness was mostly hidden under the soapy, bubble-covered water of the bath. No, it was probably pleasure in making Harry uncomfortable. “Getting ready to fuck you, darling.”

“I’m sore,” Harry said bluntly. “I don’t want you right now.”

“At least you were honest enough to clarify that you’re talking about the immediate moment, not some impossible one where you don’t want me at all.” Riddle dropped his shirt on the floor, and Harry’s eyes took in the sight of Riddle’s muscles in spite of himself. “What if I could do something that meant you didn’t have to move at all?”

“There’s no position like that.”

Riddle smiled and flicked his wand. Harry found himself rising in the air, still with water and bubbles clinging to his hips. He snarled at Riddle, but Riddle strode over and knelt down next to the bath while Harry hovered on an invisible cushion.

“Ah, yes, there.”

Harry arched his back as Riddle’s fingers slid into his arse, into a place where it was true the harsh exercise of the Auror classes hadn’t made him sore, and let his eyes become half-lidded. Riddle stood up and stripped the rest of the way, his face bright for some reason. Harry wanted to shrug, but that would have involved irritating his shoulders.

“Let me— _ah_.”

Harry’s eyes rolled back in his head as Riddle found his prostate. And then Riddle sat on the edge of the bathtub, which he must have secured in place with charms so it wouldn’t rock, and used the cushion of air to float Harry towards him, sinking him onto his cock.

Harry braced for the pain, but the spells Riddle used must also have included lubrication. There was nothing except a kind of satisfying burn different from the one in his muscles before Riddle began to thrust.

It took a minute or so before Harry managed to pop one eye open and watch Riddle. Riddle was panting, sweat standing out slick on his skin. His hips pumped and his muscles bulged with strength Harry wouldn’t have expected of a wizard his age.

Then again, there was little about Riddle that was in any way normal.

“Am I pleasing you, Harry?” Riddle asked, and for some reason there was an almost insane little smile on his lips. “Or are you going to gape at me like someone dull-witted until I fuck the answer out of you?”

“Of course you’re pleasing me— _ah_!” Harry let his head sag back and his eyes shut again. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

Luckily, it seemed Riddle wasn’t, either, if the way his thrusts abruptly quickened was any indication. Harry clasped his legs around Riddle’s waist and rode it out, wanting to shake his head but unable to do it because of how he was moving. This was weird, the way just confirming something to be true set Riddle off.

But as Harry’s pleasure crested and came roaring out of him, he found that he couldn’t care.

Riddle joined him a second later, and Harry winced as he sank his teeth into Harry’s shoulder, right on top of one of the muscles that had been jolted the most by training today. “Fucking snake,” Harry said.

He opened his eyes to find that Riddle was leaning forwards to kiss him. “Don’t worry,” he said, when he drew back and left Harry’s mouth warm and tingling. “I have a salve that I’ll rub into your muscles before I let you sleep.”

“ _Let_ me sleep?” Harry demanded, only to have the words smothered by Riddle’s mouth.

And yes, it was letting him sleep, in the end, since they didn’t reach the bed before Harry had the strength for another round.

And he even lay awake for a short while, staring at the wall with wide eyes and absorbing the simple fact that he couldn't remember the last time, with another arm bundled over his chest and another body bundled against his back, that he had been this warm.

Or this content.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m confused, Senior Undersecretary.” The voice dripped condescension like oil, and Harry tensed before he thought about it, sure of whose eyes he would meet when he looked up. The oily smile hadn’t changed, either. “Why did you take someone who has a _Muggleborn_ last name and no father as your political protégé?”

Harry reached for his wand, but Riddle’s hand was abruptly there, clamping around his arm. He turned it as if to let Harry see the fingerprints he’d left last night and remind Harry of the stakes. Harry averted his eyes and continued working down the Ministry corridor.

“Because he's considerably more powerful and skilled than any pure-blood with a father could be,” Riddle replied.

Harry had to choke back his laughter this time. From the baffled glance on Draco Malfoy’s face, he wasn’t used to being talked to like that. And indeed, he planted himself in their path a moment later, his hands on his hips and a petulant sneer on his face.

“If I’d known that you accepted anyone who whored himself out like Evans does, Senior Undersecretary, I would have applied for the position.”

Harry tensed all his muscles. He was doing it to hold himself still, as much for Riddle's outrage that someone had figured it out as to be ready if Malfoy came at him, but Riddle sent him a slashing glance before he faced Malfoy again. His face was faintly bored.

“I agree that when he slept with you Harry was lowering his value, but those are the sorts of lessons that I would expect a young man to learn.”

Malfoy’s face turned hot and pink, the way Harry had only seen it do once before when he refused to continue their three-month “relationship.” Malfoy balled a fist and stepped forwards.

“Yes?” Riddle angled a little to the side, and suddenly, his casual stance transformed. He didn’t hold a wand, but every line of his posture screamed that Malfoy would be an idiot to continue the movement. Harry thought he could also see the lines in the walls stirring. Riddle’s family Gift was Parseltongue, everyone knew that, but beyond that basic knowledge, the rumors went wild, since it was so long since anyone in public had wielded that kind of magic. One of the rumors was that Riddle had embedded stone snakes in every wall in the Ministry who would come to him when he called.

Malfoy retreated hastily, hands clenched around his waist as if he had a stomachache. Harry watched him go. Riddle had put Malfoy in his place far more effectively than Harry could have.

And they had an audience, if only in the form of flunkies and Aurors who abruptly started moving again when Riddle looked at them. This would cut deep, and affect Malfoy’s political standing, which he prized far more than even his magic. Harry grinned. “Thanks.”

Riddle only nodded distantly and began walking again. Harry followed. He was sure he was the only one close enough to hear the murmured, “No one is allowed to abuse you.”

“You mean in your presence,” Harry said. For some reason, his words brought the insane little grin back to Riddle’s lips. For the life of him, Harry couldn’t figure out what made Riddle smile like that some of the time and not the rest.

“In my presence or out of it.” Riddle’s hand took hold of Harry’s wrist again, but this time only squeezed it gently. “Do you understand? You are to report anyone who takes vengeance on you for being who you are to me immediately.”

“Being who I am?” Harry was wondering if he could get the pure-bloods who condescended to him in trouble.

“For being the wizard you are, and having the name you do, and having the magic you do.”

Harry felt for a moment as though Riddle had conjured a lump of ice to drop directly into the middle of his stomach. He managed to smile, although he did it nervously. “So you are saying that I can get the pure-bloods who condescend to me in trouble.”

“If you want to think of it that way, then do so. But there is a price for these services, remember that.”

Harry was happier to talk about that than to talk about the kind of magic he had. “Yes, you still haven’t explained how ensuring I get a promotion to Auror and making other people think you're tutoring me in politics helps you.”

Riddle smiled and nodded to the door in front of him, the elaborately-carved door of the Wizengamot’s greatest courtroom. “We’re about to begin.”

*

Harry left the courtroom a little dazed. He leaned against the wall outside it and shook his head. “Are they always like that?”

“Like what, Evans?” Riddle leaned casually against the wall. Harry grimaced, understanding the warning. They were still in public, and they didn’t have a guarantee that no one was watching them with an intent to gossip later.

“Always—staring.” That was the politest way Harry could put it. It seemed that more members of the Wizengamot had paid attention to him than had paid attention to the points Riddle was making about Muggleborns. It was weird. Sure, he was a novelty, but he had thought they would want to argue against someone who was tearing down some of their most passionate beliefs.

Among other things, Riddle had said that powerful magic was something that any wizard could have, not just magic bound to family lines. It had made one of the older wizards in the top row faint.

But that wizard had come back to consciousness and resumed staring at Harry. It was bloody weird.

“Yes, well, undoubtedly part of it is that a few of them have guessed at our arrangement. And I have not flaunted my conquests before now.”

Harry turned sharply away, but didn’t manage to remove himself from Riddle’s sphere of influence. Riddle continued escorting him along the corridor anyway, nodding to some people who murmured congratulations to them with averted eyes. They were in the lift that would take them to the Ministry Atrium before Harry was able to get away from him.

“So I was there as a distraction?” he asked, and formed his tongue around the next words so that Riddle would be able to hear the utter disdain in them. “As a _conquest_?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harry. My conquests have never been as dear to me as you.”

Harry stared at the sleeve of his new robe, bright black velvet with gold edging, and said nothing. True, this said that Riddle was serious, but it wasn’t as though this was binding forever, not like some pure-blood wedding vows. Riddle could take back his favor any day, and Harry assumed he would, once he got what he wanted from Harry.

It was just trying to figure out exactly what that was, besides sex, that was driving him mad.

The lift arrived at the Atrium, and Harry nearly stepped off it before a sharp tingle ran through his arm. He caught his breath and stumbled back. Riddle stared at him, maybe because he’d never seen Harry react that way before.

“What is wrong with you?” Riddle asked sharply.

“Kin magic,” Harry gasped. Yes, his father had refused to recognize him as a Potter, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t recognize his own blood. Those were among the simplest spells, taught to every magical child the minute he or she was capable of carrying on a conversation. “My father’s here.”

Riddle’s face changed at once, and he moved in front of Harry as they stepped off the lift. “He can’t take you back. He has no claim to you once you carry a different last name.”

Harry kept himself from sighing. He had no doubt James Potter wouldn’t see it that way. He was of the sort that thought a Muggleborn last name could be overridden by a pure-blood one any instant. For years, he had enjoyed pretending, at least in private, that that instant might happen any visit now, coming to Lily and dangling the possible favor for Harry as bait. Harry’s mum had left him visit because she thought a father should have a connection to his son, that someday James would change his mind. Harry had known better, but hadn’t wanted to destroy her hopes.

But something like this, something that threatened to better Harry’s life without his price for it, would bring James out of the shadows.

“Harry!”

Yes, there he was, yelling from a corner near the fireplaces. Harry braced himself and turned to face the man, nodding stiffly.

“Mr. Potter, sir.” Technically, illegitimate children weren’t supposed to call their parents by their first names.

“Never mind that!” James came up and shook Harry by the elbows, staring at him. Then his eyes fell on the fine robes, and he grimaced. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He spun around and faced Riddle. “What are _you_ doing with him?”

“Something important that doesn’t need your input, Mr. Potter. You gave up all right to have a say in Harry’s life years ago, from what I understand.”

“He’s my son!”

“You never publicly confirmed that he was, and let him retain the name Evans, to prove it. Technically only his mother has a greater claim to him than I do now.” Riddle had a thin smile, sharp as the edge of a stiletto, for James, and Harry was startled at how much something deep in his chest pulsed in warm approval. “A word of advice?”

“What?” His father had a way of sticking out his chin that Harry remembered well.

“Don’t cast aside a treasure and then claim it was all a misunderstanding. Treasures don’t like that, and neither do their owners.”

“Fuck off,” Harry snapped, without even considering the consequences. “You are not my bloody _owner_.”

Riddle might not have heard him. He was contemplating James’s face. James didn’t turn red, the way he would have a few years ago, but faced Riddle down with contempt that made Harry ache. “He’s still my son.”

“You valued his blood over his skill,” Riddle murmured. “Or should I say the _lack_ of blood? Tell me, Mr. Potter, would you claim as kin a legitimate Potter wizard who had abandoned his children?”

“What? Of course not.”

“And yet, that makes as much sense as giving up someone who is your child but does not have the right name.”

“Stop acting as though you’re fighting a battle on my behalf,” Harry hissed at Riddle, and then caught himself sharply back. Honestly, he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to hear what James had to say. He didn’t want to hear what Riddle had to say. “Look, both of you pound your chests and yell at each other if you want. I’m hungry.”

“We should have lunch,” James said, quickly, loudly.

Harry glanced warily at Riddle, who only reached out and touched his arm once more, then smiled. “That might be a good idea, Harry.”

“And of course you won’t tell me why.”

“This one is more transparent than you’re always accusing me of being, Harry. I want you to remember what you left behind, and consider what it’s worth to you.” And Riddle turned and strode away across the Atrium as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

*

“How could you accept his claim that he's going to tutor you in politics, Harry?”

“I don’t know, it’s pretty easy when he doesn't treat me like shit.”

James flushed so dark a red that Harry wondered for a second if he should be concerned about his father’s health. Honestly, he’d forgotten what it was like to be in close quarters with him. James had treated him with so much contempt during Harry’s childhood, and then anger when he realized that Harry had dared to inherit powerful magic anyway.

Disapproval wasn’t new, though. Not since James knew Lily was pregnant.

“I’m not talking about—treating you like you matter.” James had somehow managed to keep his eyes averted from the new robes and Harry's face the entire time they were eating lunch in the exclusive restaurant called Milady, where the servers were dressed as Veela and the walls were covered with portraits of beautiful women. Harry was enjoying his delicate lamb chops, but thought idly that many more words would spoil his appetite. “I’m talking about how you could accept his offer to elevate you in the Ministry’s ranks.”

Harry shrugged and swallowed. “So far, he honestly hasn’t given that many chances to refuse, and I was tired of being a no-account Dark Patrolman.”

“It’s not the kind of bargain a Potter would accept.”

“Jolly good that I’m not one, then.”

James spent at least five minutes playing with the stem of his wineglass. Harry ignored him and ate some more. He was definitely going to order a second dish, since his father was paying, and take the food home with him. He hadn’t eaten this well in a while.

“I made a mistake.”

“What a surprise.”

James glared at him. Harry looked implacably back. As far as he had been concerned, his father’s first mistake was marrying Livia Malfoy while continuing to visit Lily to “connect with his son,” and then swinging between indulgence, gifts, and hints that he wanted to legitimize Harry, followed by indifference, insults, or sneers based on Lily's willingness to believe his lies. Harry had spent years trying to please the man.

The way he had sworn his mother to silence about the ritual he'd tried to perform so that James would come back to her had probably been a mistake, but it had also been literally the last thing he could do to make sure that his actions didn’t destroy Lily. The one good thing about giving up forever on the Potter last name had been relinquishing that attempt to make his father be responsible.

“I made a mistake not recognizing you,” James said.

Harry stared at him. He had never expected anything like that, especially since James did have Harry’s half-sister Annabelle, and she had the Potter--everything, so it wasn’t like James would lack a pure-blood heir to the name. It had once been the custom for women to change their last names when they married men, but now what mattered was the power of the family and the magic the children inherited. Well, and that they married instead of having children outside of the wedded bed.

Harry yanked himself back from venturing down _that_ mental path. There lay nightmares. He asked instead, in as neutral a voice as he could force himself to use, “So what does that mean?”

“We want you back, Harry. Your sister asks all the time when you’re coming home. Your mother cries herself to sleep each night, and I’m tired of dealing with her tears.”

“The woman who would be my _step_ mother, you mean. I doubt she really does. And that’s not the same as admitting you made a mistake.”

“But…” James let the words trail off, and shook his head. “I think that Potters should have a certain kind of honor. That doesn't always mean playing by society's rules, but it means thinking about the effect of their actions on other people. Are you really going to continue this--association with Riddle? If I bring you into the fold?”

Harry stared at his hands. The problem was, if he gave in and accepted what he had wanted for so long, he would be giving his father that control over him that Riddle arguably had now. But at least Harry had always known that what Riddle wanted was conditional, and when he withdrew his support, Harry wouldn't be devastated. Becoming a Potter and then losing it would leave him that way.

As far as thinking about the effects of one's actions, Riddle was more honorable than James.

“Harry?”

“I’ll think about it,” Harry said abruptly, and stood up, reaching for his plate. It vanished before he could touch it. He shot a narrow-eyed glance at his father, who offered him a large bag of clinking Galleons.

“Please, Harry. I don’t like to think of you scraping by, barely able to buy food.”

“It never bothered you before this. Is this just because I’ve taken up with Riddle? Are you so desperate to prevent your political enemy from succeeding that you want to pay me so I don’t need him?” Riddle was James’s enemy not even because they disagreed on Muggleborns—Lily was the only one James had actively mistreated—but because James distrusted any one person having as much power in the Ministry as Riddle had had.

“Say that the news of him manipulating my son just moved up a realization that was coming for a while.” James took a deep breath, and when he looked up at Harry, his eyes shone with something like tears. “Please, Harry. I know I haven’t been the best father, but I’m sorry. I’d like to try again.”

Harry thought of one other thing his father had shouted at him the last time they'd "talked." “You have to know that I’m not going to suddenly provide an heir to the family by going and marrying a woman. I like men, Father.”

“And I’m ready to accept that.” James swallowed. “I’m sorry. I—said a lot of things I shouldn’t have, and then I was too damn stubborn and proud to come and admit I was wrong. Please take the money.”

Harry folded his father’s fingers back around the bag. James looked devastated for a second, but Harry shook his head and said, “My wages as an Auror trainee are providing me with all the money I need right now.” He’d just been hoarding them instead of spending them as he should. He couldn’t believe that this good fortune was going to last.

Besides, he didn't trust the money. James was too good an actor, adept at fooling even himself. Right now, it might seem that Harry's “political apprenticeship” with Riddle was the worst news that James had ever received, scandalous enough to make him consider "rescuing" Harry. But the instant he had Harry supposedly free, he would reverse course, deciding that having Harry as a Potter was too much "pressure" on his wife and other child.

Harry had heard that song too many times before.

“But you’re only an Auror trainee because of Riddle.”

Harry shrugged. “My instructors say I’m a damn good one. What Riddle did was break down the barriers and get them to stop looking at my last name…”

He trailed off, staring at the wall of Milady. The portrait his eyes rested on, a witch in a revealing gown, raised her eyebrows and gave him a wicked smirk.

Was it as simple as _that_ , the political point Riddle was hoping to prove with Harry by taking him in front of the Wizengamot today? To get people to start paying attention to talent instead of last names and blood?

“I’ve got to go,” Harry said abruptly. “I’ve got to talk to Riddle.”

“About letting you out of this arrangement?”

Harry waved his hand. “No, that’s just—some shit he’s pulled for his own benefit. An excuse. I’m sure that he’ll let me out of it as soon as he’s achieved enough good publicity because of it. Look at how long he’s been around, and never with political allies that lasted more than a few years. I want to tell him that I’m willing to help him break down those barriers, and he doesn’t have to mentor me to do it.” He forced the venom he wanted to use out of the smile he gave James. “I hope that we can be a family again, Father," he said, lying spectacularly, "but I have to think about it.”

James at least looked relieved as he stood up and clapped Harry on the shoulder. “Then go and figure out whether that bastard is going to let you go or not. I want my son back.”

Harry’s smile thinned despite himself, but he just turned and pushed himself through the crowd near the door at Milady without looking back. The truth was that he would never give in to his father for the sake of being a Potter.

He had always longed for that kind of acknowledgment; he couldn't lie to himself about that. But he’d also believed that he was done with his family forever bar some angry conversations with his father here and there, and maybe his sister when she got old enough and the ceremony of adulthood had made her independent in some respect of his father and not susceptible to disownment.

He couldn’t have reversed that thinking all at once even if this was real. And he simply couldn't trust that it was.

*

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Really. That was less time than I thought it would take you.”

Riddle had laid aside the paperwork he had in front of him and was giving Harry his full attention, so Harry ignored his snide manner, pacing back and forth in front of the desks instead. “You want to change the system. Blood shouldn't be enough to get someone respect, but at the moment, that and your last name is all anyone looks at. A Muggleborn Minister won’t change things. People will put up with her for a few years and sneer about her lack of a proper name and then vote her out of office. You can’t change things just by being who you are because people see you as powerful mostly because of your Slytherin heritage.”

“Yes,” breathed Riddle. Harry glanced at him quickly, expecting sarcasm, but Riddle’s eyes were narrowed and full of fascination. “Go on.”

“And some people probably know better by now because of your intelligence, but you keep being underestimated.” Harry spoke more slowly now, since he wasn’t as sure of this part. “The social perception that purity is all that matters is too strong. And it doesn’t _allow_ for change. Some people, who do show unexpected magic, are adopted into old families and neutralized politically. Muggleborns who don’t show those talents can’t make any headway. Pure-bloods are willing to make a few vague gestures in the name of equality but not say that it _really_ matters that someone else is wise, or powerful, or a good teacher, or a great Potions brewer. And all the time, they pretend the system is open and there’s lots of social mobility because someone _might_ be claimed as the long-lost member of a powerful bloodline if they have the right talent.”

“Exactly.” Riddle stood up and came around his desk, leaning against it. “Go on.”

“The system makes everyone chase the idea of belonging to a family, of having power.” Harry rubbed his hand over his face. “But when you think about it, most of the pure-blood 'heritage' doesn’t matter all that much. I mean, in some situations it nice to have, but most decisions get made in Ministry debates and law-making sessions these days, not in private dinners where knowing the right silverware to use is vital. How often do those happen? The Blacks receive deference because of their fearsome reputation, but that doesn’t make them political geniuses. It ensures they can only get what they want by threatening people. The Malfoys supposedly do have that genius, but even that doesn’t mean much when they take such risks to avenge personal insults.”

“Exactly. And yes, that is their nature.”

Harry nodded. The Malfoys were one of the families who rested on their laurels too much. Harry had put together what he thought about them from reading newspapers and history books and watching how Draco Malfoy acted. “So you get all these people obsessed with markers of status that don’t actually allow them to change the world. The ones on top stay there. The occasional real threat gets feted and honored and given wealth, but then that distracts them from making big changes.” Harry paused and tilted his head at Riddle. “What makes you so different? Is it just because you’re intelligent?”

“It is because of the way I grew up, and what I learned about my mother’s family. The Gaunts, despite their Slytherin blood, were the lowest of the low, living in filth and inbreeding because they were afraid that marrying someone else would mean losing their Parseltongue.” Riddle’s eyes shone like a hunter’s now. “My mother used a love potion on my Muggle father, and produced me, a half-blood with the Gift. But I grew up among Muggles because my father spurned her and she died bearing me. I scrabbled in the filth with the rest of them. I fought for food and attention and clothing.”

“An orphanage?” Of course Harry had heard stories about Riddle, but he’d never heard anything like this.

“Yes.” Riddle’s fingers performed a long drumroll on the desk. “I saw how power works, and it’s not because you look down your nose at people and strut around, or because you’re able to Transfigure a chair into a chicken wandlessly.”

“What family has _that_ power?"

“The Greengrasses.”

“Holy shit.” Harry failed to hold back his laughter. “If I’d known that, Daphne Greengrass wouldn’t have walked around with her nose so high in the air.” The only thing most people knew about the Greengrasses was that supposedly they had a Gift for wandless Transfiguration.

“The system is binding in many ways,” Riddle said, and now he smiled like someone who had made the sun rise. “But it’s fragile if you produce the right combination of intelligence, political power, and magical strength. It’s taken me decades to have all the stars align. I needed political power, a Muggleborn Minister who would listen to me, the right number of pure-blood families deferring to me instead of sneering at me because of my heritage, and the right number of Muggleborns who are discontented but ready to listen because they see me supporting Minister Granger.” Riddle interlaced his fingers and stared at Harry. “And a magically powerful ally who would support me no matter what, owing me favors but also able to stand on his own.”

Harry blinked at that. “I wasn’t standing on my own, though. You know what you rescued me from, and what kind of future I would have had without you.”

“You did stand on your own, perhaps not knowing it. You had the ability to rise when you were seventeen and you refused it. Admittedly, I didn’t know that until I began a more recent investigation, but that convinced me of your principles. Then it only remained to test whether I could bind you to me with sex, and gifts to convince you how serious I was, and to persuade you to reveal your magical power. I had what I needed. Someone with principles, with magical strength, with favors owed, who had as much reason to wish the system in pieces as I did.”

Harry fell back a slow step, feeling as though someone had laid an iron bracelet around his neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. About rising at age seventeen, that is.”

“Don’t play the fool, Harry. It doesn’t suit you. And I can only assume that you don’t know what I’m talking about because you haven’t listened closely to the words I’m speaking. Tell me, which language has this conversation been in?”

 _Shit, shit, shit._ Harry’s heart was bounding like a frightened rabbit. He forced himself to stand still and meet Riddle’s eyes and smile blandly. “English, of course. I don’t speak French or anything else.”

Riddle laughed and looked aside from Harry for a moment. Then he spoke, and his voice did sound different, less intense, more shaded. “This is English.” He faced Harry again, and his words resumed, only now Harry could hear the hisses that crept along the sides of them. “ _This is Parseltongue._ ”

Harry lifted his head high. He supposed he had known this day would come, but then again, Riddle had been close to him for weeks now—none closer—and hadn’t acted as though he’d divined the secret.

They must have spoken in Parseltongue without Harry noticing numerous times, Harry thought bitterly. Damn it. And now it made sense why Riddle had chosen a lowly Dark Patrolman as his lover. He must have heard Harry speaking Parseltongue to a snake painting in the depths of the Ministry that he had visited several times because he was desperately lonely and there was no one else to share it with.

How he knew about Harry finding the cellar entrance to the legendary Chamber of Secrets, though, and fighting and humbling the basilisk within, and being granted Parseltongue as a boon for sparing the creature’s life at age seventeen, though...that was anyone's guess.

“You could have claimed my attention, _anyone’s_ attention, by revealing that when you were seventeen.” Riddle’s eyes were blazing. “You could have set yourself up as a political rival to me. You could have had gifts from my enemies, who would pay a great deal to know what my supposedly private conversations with my closest allies said. Why didn’t you?”

“For one thing,” Harry said, forcing himself to stand still and meet Riddle’s eyes, “I’m honestly not the kind of political genius you are. I wasn’t dreaming of changing the world when I was that age. I was dreaming of getting respect.”

Riddle narrowed his eyes. “You truly thought your father might respect you then?”

Harry wasn't about to admit his own stupid thinking on that subject. “Pure-bloods in general," he lied. "For a second thing,” and he folded his arms, “I wasn’t a Parselmouth until I fought a basilisk.”

It was a pleasure to watch Riddle’s mind at work, as dangerous as it was. Harry practically watched him soar across several steps, and then catch his breath and shake his head in wonder. “The night you disappeared and came back with a bandaged arm,” he said. “The exploration to find the Chamber of Secrets that supposedly failed. It gave you Parseltongue instead.”

Harry nodded. “My mother knows. My father doesn’t. As far as he’s concerned, I did something stupid and reckless and just proved that I can't even get glory out of it like my sister. I’m an Evans. Not a Potter.”

Riddle took a long stride forwards and slid his hands around Harry’s cheeks. Harry flushed and looked away. It _hurt_ to meet Riddle’s gaze, shining with admiration.

“And will you change that now?” Riddle breathed. “Will you stand openly at my side, and use your Gift to convince the old pure-bloods they should listen to you, all the while we’re working against them, using their secrets, forcing them to promote the interests of half-bloods and Muggleborns?”

Harry swallowed and curled his hand slowly around Riddle’s wrist. “It would mean telling my father. He supposedly came to apologize today. This would probably destroy the reconciliation with him.”

“You haven’t had him in your life in any true capacity for twenty-two years. Will you give up a glorious future for the sake of a past that has been shattered? Your father is a pure-blood who puts too much emphasis on his own ability to control people. He won’t change.”

“He said he would.”

“Perhaps enough to play with you for a short while. Can you subject yourself to him for a few weeks while he indulges his desire for charity and then rejects you again?”

And _that_ was what Harry didn’t want, and exactly why he had always kept his new Gift concealed from his father. He didn't trust _anything_ to change James Potter. He took a long, sharp breath. “I wanted to be an Auror. I went along with this--telling people you were tutoring me in politics—because I thought it was a way to conceal our true arrangement. I didn't know you meant it. You're talking about claiming me as a partner.”

“I won’t have what I need without you,” Riddle said simply. “We will appear together because the stuffy pure-bloods will think we’re part of their cluster and longing to forward their agendas. And because I want you.”

Harry had never expected to hear those words from anyone. On the other hand, they weren’t words of love. He moved slowly back from Riddle and said, “I need to think.”

“Very well. I shall wait for you.”

“How long do I have to think?”

“I would give you a year, if that was what you needed. You have no idea how long I have waited.”

And Harry thought he saw the crack of loneliness in Riddle’s eyes, running through the shiny surfaces. He thought he understood. Riddle had chosen not to marry before this, to have no children, and no members of his family were left. No other Parselmouths. In a world where family was everything, he had been alone.

_God, what I mean to him._

From the middle of a world shaken to its foundations, Harry whispered, in Parseltongue, “ _I’ll tell you tomorrow, Tom,_ ” and ducked out of the office with Riddle still staring after him.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry lay in front of the fireplace in the flat that Riddle had handed him the key to last week. It was supposedly their fucking place, but they had actually only spent one night together here, and Harry didn't think Riddle would intrude tonight.

Instead, he stared at the reflection of flames from white marble, and took a series of deep breaths to relax himself as much as possible.

Did he _believe_ Riddle when he stated that he wanted to change the world, and wanted to do it with Harry's help?

Yes, he did. In some ways, Riddle might play him as false as James Potter had, but he would at least announce the new terms of their bargain if it changed. And Harry thought their sexual relationship could end and he could still remain a valuable ally at Riddle's side. Riddle had to know that Harry had no more to gain than he did by telling the truth about their affair.

Did he _want_ to remain at the side of someone who knew such secrets about him, though, and had made this kind of bargain in the first place?

Harry snorted in the next instant. As if he was ethically pure. He had known that he would snatch advancement if he could, at nearly any price. He wouldn't have murdered anyone, and he wouldn't have done something to forge records because he couldn't do it well and he would have been caught. But the world had coarsened him since he'd left Hogwarts. He couldn't be the idealistic person he had once been because reality didn't work that way.

And if he thought about it, he was being offered a more honest chance to get ahead in the Ministry than he would have if he had grown up a Potter. There, he would have been tracked into Auror training because he of his name, regardless of his NEWT and OWL scores. Here, he had a chance to be seen for what he was, even approved by people like the Minister.

_All because Riddle wanted to fuck me._

Harry opened his eyes and stared in silence into the fire, the way he had at the wall of Milady just a few hours ago. This time, at least there was no portrait to wink at him with what they assumed was the sauciness of his thoughts.

_It's more than that, and you know it._

Yes, Riddle had found another Parselmouth, and he had done something besides confront Harry with it, or blackmail him, or extend a formal offer of alliance to him. He had started the sex _first,_ presumably because he wanted to show Harry how good it could be and skip over a few steps of the possible persuasion. If the idea was already in Harry's head, he would resist it less, too.

Riddle had acted like a Slytherin, which was what he was, in every sense of the word, but Harry honestly didn't feel manipulated. Riddle had stopped the manipulation now, as far as Harry could tell, and was extending an honest offer. Harry would get no better, might get far worse, if he turned this down.

And, to be honest with himself for the final this time this evening?

_I don't want to turn it down._

It was no longer even just about the fact that Riddle was one of the few people who could protect him from James Bloody Potter. Harry wanted to rub his father's nose in it. He wanted to join his father's political enemy and bring down the system that James Potter had, in the end, been such a faithful part of. That would be revenge far sweeter than any other he could get, since being promoted in the Ministry just provoked the same tantrums and attempts to control him.

But there was something he wanted to do first.

*

Lily was so still, sitting with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on the floor. Harry wanted to shout, clap, poke her, do _something_ to make her eyes blaze and focus on his. But, of course, part of the reason that he was here was that no one had done that in a long time.

"You really mean that," Lily whispered finally. "All those years that I was trying to give you a relationship with your father, you only hated it and resented it." She took a stuttering breath. "It was a waste of time."

"You were doing what you thought best," Harry said quietly. "And I was a child, and then I was an adult who thought that you should keep doing this if you wanted to and I couldn't control you. But I finally realized I was letting him control _both_ our lives by not telling you how much I hate seeing him here. Mum, please. If you want to go on meeting up with him for some reason, fine. But don't bring me into it again, and don't do it _for_ me."

Lily swallowed and reached out to clasp his hand. Harry took hers and squeezed it hard. He thought he could make out the first threads of grey in her brilliant hair if he looked, which hurt a little.

"Then, fine, I won't see him again," Lily said. "I thought--I always thought that _this_ would be the time that I could get him to give you just a little more attention, or just a little more help, or just a little bit of the Potter fortune. Or a relationship with Livia and Annabelle."

She was able to say Livia's name without grimacing, which was more than Harry could do. A surge of admiration for his mother's strength overcame him, and he stood up and went over to hug her without letting go of her hand. Lily grasped him strongly enough that Harry's shoulders hurt.

"I don't want one with Livia," Harry said quietly. He knew that James was far more to blame than his wife for the marriage, but Livia had also loudly proclaimed her belief in blood purity and the necessity of turning one's back on illegitimate children every time she'd spoken to the press. Harry had no use for her. "Annabelle can seek me out when she's old enough, if she wants. She might never do that. I'm not going to put my life in limbo and endure my dolt of a father because someday she _might_ want one."

Lily nodded slowly. "Then you think I did the wrong thing."

She had permitted James's visits in the first place because she had feared doing the wrong thing and cutting a son off from his father, Harry knew. Now he shook his head. "You did what you thought was best, what would have been best if my father had a moral bone in his body. As it is, it's just a difficult time that's in the past now."

Lily hugged him again, and then drew back to study his face. "And this affair you're having with the Senior Undersecretary? You're satisfied that it's for the best?"

"Yes. It might not be permanent," Harry added quickly, because he knew his mum had doubts about that. "But it feels like it could be. And it's the best offer I'll ever get. And I want him."

Lily gave the faintest grimace at those last words, but smiled the next moment. Harry was sure she just didn't want to know any more about his sex life than she'd heard when he'd been in Hogwarts and Flooing her to complain every time a fling ended. "Good, then. For what an old woman's blessing is worth, Harry, you have mine."

"I'll take my _mother's_ blessing gladly," Harry said, bowing his head. "And you promised me that you would try to develop that enchanting business, finally. You've had your training for a year."

"Your father could still scuttle it. The license has to go through that committee he's on."

Harry laughed. "And whose office does it go through first? The Senior Undersecretary's."

Lily looked a little shocked. "I'm sure that--I'm not sure it's moral to--"

Harry squeezed her hands again. "If it's moral for all the pure-bloods to benefit from the structures in place for them, it's moral to get a license expedited for the good of a hard-working Muggleborn. Besides, Riddle doesn't even need to use undue influence for you, just make it clear that he would be _very displeased_ if any influence was exercised in the opposite direction."

Lily looked hard at him. "And you're going to ask for that clarity."

"Yes," Harry admitted without shame. "I'd do it even if you didn't want me to, Mum, honestly. I've had enough of the way James Potter puts you down."

Lily smiled a little. "If this is the only time you do it for me. And I mean that, Harry James Evans. I need you to make the decisions that are best for you, but once I have my enchanting business well in hand, I don't want any more _favors._ "

Harry nodded. He suspected the hard thing to do would be controlling Tom from going off and doing something on his own if he saw a situation involving Lily that he could make the difference in, rather than holding back his own impulse to interfere.

_And I just called him Tom for the first time._

Harry left his mother's house with a warm glow in his belly and the determined promise of a happier future at the forefront of his mind.

*

"You have made your decision."

Harry raised his eyebrows a little as he put down his hands flat on the table in Tom's office. "You don't know that. I could have come back to ask for more information, or a better bargain."

"You know the first bargain was entirely in your favor."

Harry tilted his head, not wanting to dispute that. He'd even wondered about it at the time, but not enough to refuse. "So I am telling you, Tom Riddle, that I will work with you to disrupt the pure-blood system and forward the interests of half-bloods and Muggleborns."

Tom closed his eyes for a long second, which Harry took as a tribute. He could imagine that it had been a long time since Tom had shown that kind of weakness to anyone. A second later, Tom opened them again and leaned forwards. "And what will you ask for, besides the work itself?"

"That you make it clear to my father's committee that failing to license my mother's enchanting business will be taken most seriously."

A faint smile played around the corners of Tom's mouth. "And your mother agreed to that? She struck me as a formidable, upright woman."

Harry shrugged slightly. "She is. But she knows that otherwise, my father will block her from opening up the business at all, so she'll take what she considers unfair influence to fight unfair influence. She did say that that's the last assistance she'll take from you, and she wants me to make it _clear._ "

From the way Tom smiled absently, Harry was sure that he was going to be just as difficult to keep on a leash as Harry had anticipated. But Harry was going to work at it. After all the men in his mother's life who hadn't respected her wishes, Tom should. "What else will you ask?"

"No more secret sexual relationship."

Tom blinked once. "As you wish. But please keep the clothes, the new flat, and my other gifts."

"You aren't listening to the nuances of my words, Senior Undersecretary Riddle," Harry chided softly, reaching out to catch his hand. "I want a _public_ sexual relationship. A consortship. I know you've never publicly claimed a consort, but on the other hand, _I_ am not some passing fancy. Claim me."

Tom's eyes burned bright as candles for a moment, then dimmed. "That's not advisable when you just made Auror trainee. There are too many people who will spread the rumor that it only happened because you graced my bed."

"Introduce me as the only other living Parselmouth in Britain," Harry suggested, smiling as he thought what his father's face would look like when that happened. "It should explain for everyone who needs to know why you chose me and why you took me under your wing."

"Ah, I see." Tom leaned towards him, his eyes wide and bright. "We make family relationships work for us, again."

Harry nodded. How could pure-bloods question Tom forwarding the interests of his family without questioning their own desire to do so?

"Are those all your demands?" Tom asked softly. His right hand twitched.

"All that I can think of right now," Harry said grandly.

Tom stepped around the desk and gripped his shoulders. "I have thought in the past few days so many times of taking you over this desk."

Harry laughed and lay down on his back, spreading his legs. It was amazing how much more confident he felt, knowing that someone wanted him for who he was, what he was, and would stand by his side even after he had let him into his bed.

" _Over_ this desk, Harry. On your stomach."

Harry might have balked a few days ago. That had been a favorite position of Draco and some of the other pure-bloods who had "deigned" to fuck him. It might have stirred bad memories. But Harry rolled on his belly without complaint, and felt Tom's hands tremble as they reached out to smooth down his back next to his spine.

"You should eat more," Tom murmured.

"Fucking now, lectures about health later," Harry said, wriggling his arse, and heard Tom's breath catch before he cast the spell that deprived Harry of his clothes. His own fine robes got shed and draped carelessly over a chair, Harry was amused to see from the corner of his eye.

Tom cast the lubrication and pain-killing spells wordlessly, but planted a kiss between Harry's shoulder blades before he started to press inside Harry. Harry didn't need more than that to know what this meant to Tom. He moved slowly, his hands tracing worshipful patterns down Harry's skin, and that was another sign.

As for Harry, the slow glide was almost pure pleasure from the first moment to the last. He encouraged Tom with low grunts, but never spoke. He didn't think he needed to.

Besides, he was waiting for one particular moment.

Tom's thrusts grew more savage, more erratic, and he swore under his breath. Harry lifted himself on his elbows and turned his head back. Tom's eyes met his, almost desperate.

" _Come, if you want to,_ " Harry hissed, picturing a snake in front of his eyes as hard as he could to ensure he spoke in Parseltongue.

Tom shuddered above him, and came so hard that Harry felt it as a spasm in his arse. He smiled and followed, relaxing the tight hold he'd used on himself until that point. Pleasure swept through him, and only increased when Tom bent down and gathered him in his arms.

"You have no idea what you do to me," Tom told the back of his neck, some timeless time later when Harry returned from the silence at the heart of his orgasm. "I will never find someone else like you."

"You don't have to." Harry yawned against his arm and shifted. "Now, the edge of your desk is pressing into my groin, so unless there's some urgent reason we need to stay here, can we go find a bed?"

Tom mouthed his nape, waited until Harry was shivering and hard again, and pushed himself back with a groan. "I have a meeting in ten minutes. I'll deal with cleaning up my desk and making any excuses I need to. You deal with straightening your robes and preparing your speech."

Harry, halfway to upright, stared suspiciously back over his shoulder. "Speech."

"Tomorrow I'll be announcing you as my consort," Tom said, eyes widening with what someone would have had to be several meters away to mistake as innocence. "Did you think you would get away without a gracious speech of acceptance?" He clucked his tongue. "That is the kind of unfamiliarity with politics that we simply _must_ cure, Harry."

On his elbows and still naked wasn't a good position to hit someone from, but Harry made a spirited effort.

*

"Chin up, Harry."

Lily's voice was soft, but Harry smiled at her and nodded. If anything, this should be less nerve-wracking for him than her. There were people who would accept an ambitious half-blood of good family; it had always been more Harry's legitimacy and last name that worked against him than his mixed blood. But his mother was Muggleborn, and had to fear disdain from both sides.

Minister Granger cleared her throat, and the reporters and Aurors and Ministry flunkies stopped shifting about the Atrium and focused on her. "I understand that Undersecretary Riddle has an important announcement to make," she said, and moved out of the way. She actually winked at Harry before Tom separated them with his body. Harry grinned. Granger had to approve of what was happening here, even though she wouldn't know the truth about the origin of Harry's Parseltongue, any more than the others did.

"Thank you for coming," Tom said, his voice calm and yet with an undertone of genuine joy that made people gape at him. "This is an announcement that some of you might think it strange for me to make, but I wanted to take the opportunity to correct misconceptions as well as spread the news."

He lifted his hand. On one finger gleamed a thick silver ring in the shape of a serpent biting its own tail, a special shape that only those of Slytherin's blood were allowed to wear. Heart thrumming now, Harry lifted his hand to clasp Tom's.

The roar started on the far side of the Atrium and swept around it, gathering sound and body as it went. By the time it reached them again, or so it seemed, it had grown into a tsunami of noise.

Harry wore, also, the silver ring that Tom had given him yesterday.

"How?" more than one throat cried. "Why?" shouted others, and Harry caught Draco Malfoy's eye as he voiced that. Malfoy turned pinker than ever. Harry grinned hard.

He had wondered, himself, if they were pushing it to claim that Harry was of Slytherin's blood, but Tom had pointed out that no one except the two of them and Lily were aware of where Harry's Parseltongue had _really_ come from, which meant claiming he was of Slytherin descent was the simplest explanation. Besides, Tom loved the idea of implying that Slytherin lineage had flowed through the veins of Harry's supposedly purely Muggle ancestors on Lily's side of the family, or else manifested from the Potter heritage that had been denied him.

"What implications does this have, Senior Undersecretary?" Minister Granger finally managed to voice. She was still grinning as if she was on the edge of mental.

"It means," Tom said, into the quiet that Harry suspected had been imposed by spells, it was so sudden, "that I have found another member of my family that I have been long searching for. _Show them, Harry, dear._ "

" _I'm showing you,_ " Harry said in Parseltongue, and nearly spoiled the effect by laughing at the astonishment crashing onto the faces of every pure-blood present. The rare Muggleborn Aurors and Ministry officials looked surprised, but not as if the foundations of their world were being melted into slag.

"And that being the case," Tom continued fluidly, "I am claiming Harry Evans as my consort. Some of you will have been aware already that he was serving a political apprenticeship under me. Now my claim will be closer."

"But he's an _Evans_!" Malfoy shouted, somehow fast enough to get his objection in before anyone else's. Idly, Harry remembered that he had been pretty speedy in the bedroom, too. "You _can't_ claim him!"

"As my consort, his last name will be either Riddle--or Slytherin," Tom said, his eyes nearly as brilliant as they had been when he and Harry were making love in his office. "Together, we are entitled to resurrect that ancient name."

"He's illegitimate!" shouted someone else.

"Meaning that his mother has sole claim to him. And the brilliant, talented Lily Evans agrees with me that her son deserves a place at the top of the hierarchy." Tom smiled at Harry's mum, who stepped forwards with her head up and her face flushing a little.

"He is _my_ son!"

That was James, of course, striding forwards with his face and his plum robes almost the same color. Tom squeezed Harry's fingers for a moment in reassurance, but didn't respond. Harry nodded subtly. This would be their first test, and he had to speak, too. He couldn't count on Tom to rescue him all the time.

"You never had a claim on me," Harry told him. James stopped and stared at him, but one hand was clenching as if he would leap up and try to strangle someone. Harry for preference. "You dangled the _possibility_ of it over my head all my childhood, but you always went back to your legitimate wife and child in the end." He lifted his eyes and let them sweep over the avid crowd. "Did anyone know that, I wonder? That you continued to visit your mistress long past the end of the relationship, and your bastard long past the time when you should have decided to legitimize me or give me up?"

"That is--I wasn't sleeping with her anymore!"

"But you continued to visit me." That was Lily, her hands on her hips and her eyes bright with the fire that Harry thought had been missing for so long. "I was trying to do the _pure-blood_ thing. The _family_ thing. I thought I would give you a chance to bond with Harry, and that it was wrong to keep a son from his father. But you were never interested in being a father to him. You wanted a victim, not a child."

There were cameras clicking behind them and quills scribbling away, and James was turning redder and redder. "I have the claim of money!"

Lily laughed. "What support did you give me? All my lying-in expenses and the expenses of rearing Harry, I took on. In fact..." She paused, although Harry knew she had already come up with the plan to expose this "secret," and looked around the Atrium. "Would it surprise you to know that he asked to borrow money from _me_ at one point? It seems the Potter vaults were feeling the strain of a spoiled heir and his Malfoy wife."

Malfoy bellowed something incomprehensible. James did lunge forwards, and collided with the invisible barrier charm that the Minister's Aurors had put up. As he bounced back, two of them stepped forwards and grabbed his shoulders smartly.

"If you'll come with us, sir," the one on the right said.

"I can still claim Harry!" James yelled, struggling in place. The Aurors hesitated, since that was a pure-blood "right," and James shook them off and leaned forwards. "Come with me, Harry. I promise that you'll have the name Potter by the end of the week."

"Legitimization doesn't take that long," Harry said, letting his lip curl. "You could draw your wand right now and wave it and declare me a Potter. Let's see you do that if you mean it, _Father._ "

James hesitated. And hesitated. The moment drew out, broken by the laughter of Muggleborns towards the back of the room.

"You see," Harry said softly, never taking his eyes from James. "Not even powerful magic and Parseltongue is enough to make him do the _honorable_ thing. Because he never wanted me, just someone to control and spurn when he felt like it."

"You don't have the right to become Senior Undersecretary Riddle's consort!"

"I'm above the age of requiring parental consent," Harry told him sweetly. "But even if I wasn't, you were never my parent. And let me assure you, the Senior Undersecretary is above you in _every_ way."

He turned and met Tom's eyes. They shone with pride and love, and Tom rotated their hands so that the silver rings flashed before the bewildered eyes of everyone there.

"I suggest you leave before I have you thrown out, James Potter," Tom said, eyes locked on Harry's face. "I will be taking an _Evans_ as my consort."

Harry treasured the bewildered expression on his erstwhile father's face as he was hustled away, but he treasured more the dark-haired man who had approached his mother and was conversing in a stilted way with her. Harry knew very well that some of the unexpected money his mother had had now and then when he was young had come from Severus Snape, the Potions master at Hogwarts. It was possible that, if they were both still interested in it, they would find their way to a deeper bond than they'd been capable of as children.

Not that his mother would need the monetary support anymore, now that she would soon be successfully running her own business as a master enchanter. But Harry wished for his mother to have all kinds of happiness, including companionship if she wanted it.

His own companion stole his gaze back as Tom began to answer the reporters' questions. The Minister was fielding them the way Tom usually did for her, her smile bright and complacent. Malfoy was still pink. James was staring angrily, impotently, from the far side of the room.

But best of all was the way that Tom held his hand, casually, possessively, tightly, without looking away from the people who demanded answers from him.

Harry leaned his head on Tom's shoulder, and sighed. Being a kept man had delivered him into Tom's keeping, and he couldn't rejoice more strongly at that than he already did.

 **The End**.


End file.
